Winter's Avenger
by Solus Tal'echoy
Summary: Chicago isn't the only place the Outsiders are attacking, and Nemesis has found a new place to take root. So Nick Fury decides to turn to the Winter Court for help. Spoilers for Dresden Files! This takes place AFTER Cold Days.
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N:_**_ I should totally be working on homework, or failing that, I should be working on stories I've already started. But unfortunately, I have short attention span, so yeah, this happened..._

* * *

"Dresden."

Harry looked over to see Mab standing just inside his bedroom door, taking his attention as permission (which was unusually courteous of her) she came further into the room, followed by two people. The first, Harry recognized immediately as Gatekeeper Rashid, but the second man, tall, dark skinned, wearing an eye-patch and a leather trench coat, was unknown to him.

Harry stood when Rashid entered and bowed respectfully. Rashid nodded in return.

"I bring grave news to you, Knight," said Mab, "I fear your battle at Demonreach was not the only point where the Outsiders have broken through. As it is Winter's task to hold the Outer Gates, I must send you away to stem this new intrusion."

Rashid spoke, "This is Colonel Fury, Director of SHIELD and the man in charge of leading the defence."

Harry wondered how they had met. Maybe there was a meet-n-greet club for grizzled one-eyed people in charge of saving the world.

"I've been assembling a team of remarkable people to fight threats like this, and you've been on that list for a long time."

"So how come this is the first time you've tried to recruit me?"

Fury shrugged, "You've been busy; that doesn't mean we haven't been keeping an eye on you. But now we need to you to come in."

"The mortal is simply being courteous by attempting persuasion," Mab said, "I will not bother with such things. You are going with him, Winter Knight."

"And here I was enjoying the illusion of choice."

Mab smiled sweetly. "I had thought you were wiser than that, Dresden, perhaps we should resume your education?"

That wasn't the fun choice. "On second thought, how soon can we leave, Director?"

"Grab whatever specialised gear you use, SHIELD can provide anything else. I'll be outside." Fury nodded sharply to Rashid and Mab and left the room.

Rashid stepped towards Harry and pressed an amulet into his hand. "You will need this. It will dampen the unconscious effects of your magic. You're going to be in close contact with a lot of advanced technology, the damage of which could prove problematic.

Harry blinked. "And he wants to recruit a _wizard _to join his club? Are you sure he's intelligent?"

Rashid smiled. "Very intelligent, and quite desperate. Do not fail."

Or the stars will go out, all hell will break loose, and the world as we know it will end," Harry recited. "I know the drill."

As Rashid left, Harry noted that Mab already disappeared unnoticed, which was still creepy.

So, he was off to parts unknown to fight evil alongside total strangers. It was almost like a vacation, but with much higher chances for grisly death.

Since the fight at Demonreach, Harry had been busy. Mab's "education had gotten him to the point where he could open cans of whoop-ass without any foci, but it took a lot out of him, and he would rather not draw on the mantle more than he had to. He wasn't in the mood to go toe-to-toe with boss-level baddies unarmed again. So a new staff and shield bracelet had been at the top of the list. In addition to those two toys, Harry decided to bring the Winchester. He'd figured out some tricks he could do with it that packed a wallop without using too much power. Harry didn't normally do conservative when it came to magic, but he'd gotten attached to the damn thing.

Fury raised an eyebrow at his ensemble when he came out of his room. Given that the man had similar fashion sense when it came to coats, Harry had a feeling it wasn't the duster raising the eyebrow. As they started walking, Harry asked, "So what makes you think we're dealing with Outsiders?"

"We don't really know, beyond the fact that what Rashid called 'Nemesis' might be involved. A man calling himself Loki came through an interdimensional gate and proceeded to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys. He stole a power source we were experimenting with, and we think he's planning on opening another door. That's why I wanted Winter in on this."

Their way out was blocked by the sudden appearance of Mab and Molly. "I have but one more command," said Mab, "You will bring the Winter Lady with you."

"No, no way, not happening, I'm not doing this again."

Molly rolled her eyes. "Jesus, Harry, I'm not a damsel in distress. And Rashid gave me the same fancy magic-blocker he gave you."

Mab cocked an eyebrow. "The safety of the Winter Lady is your responsibility to begin with."

"We can't afford to have him play bodyguard on top of everything else," protested Fury.

"silence, mortal."

Fury's mouth continued to move, but no sound came out. Realizing this, he settled for a glare Harry was sure would scorch the eyebrows off anyone else.

"No offence to you, Molly, but the last time the Winter Lady crossed paths with Outsiders and Nemesis, we had to get a new Winter Lady!"

Mab expression turned hard, and Harry suddenly couldn't breathe. Or stand. "You forget your place. You will do as I command, or I will find someone who will." She vanished, releasing Harry and Fury.

"You've got a hell of a boss," said Fury.

"You're telling him," said Molly.

* * *

_**A/N: **The next chapter is in progress, I kinda know where this is going, but throwing reviews at me will help. I write short chapters, sue me._


	2. Chapter 2

**_Disclaimer: _**_I don't own Avengers or Dresden Files. And if I did, that would suck, because neither of them would ever be completed. Also, pretend I said this last chapter._

* * *

"I thought we were heading straight to the helicarrier, we're heading west," said Steve, after Coulson had finished fanboying.

"The Director had an errand to run in Chicago, we're just picking him up," said Coulson.

"What kind of errand, if you're allowed to tell?"

"He's picking up another team member. You could call it inter-agency cooperation. It's very last minute, and we didn't initially know if recruiting him would even be possible; that's why you didn't receive his file." Coulson now forwarded the relevant file to Steve's tablet. "Harry Dresden, currently known as the Winter Knight. Used to work with the Special Investigations department of Chicago PD."

Steve skimmed the info. Unlike the rest of the team, there was no video footage of the man, only some blurry pictures. But the descriptions bordered on the unbelievable. "A wizard?"

"Not the kind that pulls rabbits out of hats, nor has he ever been to Emerald City. Think more along the lines of 'control over the forces of nature.' We've been keeping tabs on him, but he disappeared a year ago. He's resurfaced now, but SHIELD has to walk on eggshells around his new employer."

"I didn't think SHIELD was in the habit of treading carefully when they wanted something. Who's this employer?"

"I don't know. I can tell you what President Obama's Secret Service agents had for breakfast last Saturday, but all I know about Dresden's employer is that she's called the Winter Queen."

"Russian?"

"Possibly."

"It says he died a year ago. Is that the same way I was 'dead?'"

Coulson shrugged. "Probably; the body was never found. The agent who was watching him reported that Dresden was shot through the heart, and a sniper round with his blood on it was later recovered. And now he's popped back up, alive, kicking, and throwing around ice instead of fireballs."

The quinjet landed, and the doors opened to admit to admit three people. The first was Nick Fury, looking annoyed. The second man was carrying a staff and an antique-looking rifle. Steve recognized him as Harry Dresden. He didn't recognize the young woman who followed him with electric blue hair.

"Let's get underway; I want to be at the helicarrier an hour ago." Fury snapped at the pilot.

"Director, I didn't realize you were picking up two assets in Chicago."

"Neither did I, but the Winter Queen isn't someone you say no to. Captain, Agent, this is Harry Dresden, the Winter Knight, and Molly Carpenter, the Winter Lady. Dresden, Carpenter, this is Captain Steve Rogers and Agent Coulson."

"When you say Captain Steve Rogers, you don't mean _the _Captain Steve Rogers, do you?" Dresden asked, eyebrows raised.

"That would me, yes. I was kind of on ice for a while." Steve really hoped this wouldn't get awkward. Again.

"Captain who now?" asked Carpenter, clearly confused.

"You gotta know who Captain America is, grasshopper, or your dad and I are gonna have words."

"The cheesy comic book character?"

Dresden smacked her on the back of the head, then held out a hand for Steve to shake. "Good to meet you Captain, my dad was a big fan. I'll admit, I always preferred Star Wars, though."

Steve shook the proffered hand, noting that it was extremely cold. "Star Wars... those were movies, right? I haven't seen them, the agents in charge of my education are more interested in throwing history books at me."

Dresden reeled dramatically and looked at Coulson. "His education is being severely neglected."

Coulson looked unimpressed. Absolutely deadpan, he said, "I'd say Star Trek is higher up on the pop culture curriculum, anyway."

Carpenter stuck her tongue out at Dresden, who threw his hands up in despair before taking a seat. "Heathens, the both of you," he grumbled.

Steve couldn't tell if the man was actually this dramatic as a rule, or if he was trying to lighten the grim mood. He kind of reminded Steve of Howard. He had heard that Tony Stark was incredibly similar to his father, so he wasn't sure whether or not to be afraid of the two meeting.

The last thing he noticed before drifting off to catch a couple of winks was that Carpenter was looking oddly at Coulson.

* * *

The first people off the quinjet were Fury and Coulson, both giving Natasha a nod before heading straight for the bridge. Rogers and the two Winter Court members were to be escorted there by her. Natasha had never met Dresden or Carpenter, and Clint had kept mum about his surveillance. But if they were another Maeve and Lloyd Slate, she doubted Fury would've recruited them. "It was quite the buzz when they found you, Captain; I thought Coulson was going to swoon," she said when Rogers hit the deck ahead of the two fey. "Has he asked you to sign his trading cards yet?"

Carpenter snickered.

"Trading cards?" asked Steve.

"They're vintage; he's very proud."

Dr. Banner was standing awkwardly on the deck, looking extremely nervous.

"Dr. Banner," Rogers greeted him with a friendly tone. "Word is you can find the cube."

"Is that the only word about me?"

Natasha noticed Dresden's and Carpenter's identical cocked eyebrows. Either they weren't in the know about the Hulk, which was possible given that wizards and fair folk tended to live under rocks (sometimes literally), or they did know and were questioning the wisdom of him being on board. If that was the case, then they weren't the only ones.

"Only word I care about."

Alarms started to ring, signalling that the carrier was preparing to go airborne. "You all might want to step inside; it's going to hard to breathe out here soon."

"Is this a submarine?" asked Rogers, bewildered.

"Oh, great, now I definitely have to question Fury's intelligence," sighed Dresden.

"You were doing that already," Carpenter replied.

"They want me in a pressurized metal tube submerged underwater?" Banner sounded incredulous.

Natasha watched as the four looked over the edge to see the massive turbines emerge and begin to spin.  
"Oh, no, this is much worse," said Banner.

Carpenter's eyebrows disappeared into her hair. "I'm gonna have to agree with you there, Doc."

* * *

As the group entered the bridge of the helicarrier, Molly's hand kept going to Rashid's amulet. She really, really, _really_ hoped that it would work as the Gatekeeper said it would. Not that she doubted the old man, per say, but she really didn't want to know what her magic, hell, forget her magic, _Harry's magic_, would do to the super sci-fi computers surrounding them.

It didn't help that everyone in the room was on edge. Literally, everyone; it made Molly want to tear her hair out. Oh, they didn't show it on their faces, they were too well trained for that. But for the majority of them, that was hte extent of their restraint. Take Coulson, who was giving Molly a headache. Outwardly, to your average Joe, Coulson was a prime example of cool stoicism. But to an empath, especially one as sensitive as Molly, pain and worry were rolling off the man in waves, Loki had made this very personal for him somehow.

* * *

**_A/N: _**_Yeah, I know, it's short. It's like I have a compulsion to not write more than a thousand words at a time. I can never meet minimum length requirements on essays, either._


	3. Chapter 3

**_A/N: _**_So when I went back to read the script for The Avengers, I realized I made a mistake last chapter. Molly is referring to Tony when she mentioned the loud man masking his emotions, but at that point, Tony hadn't joined the crew yet. The error has now been rectified._

* * *

So who's Doc Edgy with the technobabble?"

They were all waiting for Loki to show up on facial recognition. Coulson was talking to Steve, Scary-Agent-Lady had escorted Banner to his lab, and Molly had disappeared to god-only-knew where, hopefully not getting into too much trouble. So Harry did what he did best: pester the nearest authority figure.

Fury gave him a look. It was a look that Harry was quite used to receiving. "You really don't know?"

"I've kinda been on vacation."

Fury turned away from the computer grunts and lowered his voice. "Short version: Dr. Banner was part of an experiment to recreate the Super Soldier Serum." He paused.

"Yes, I know what that is, I read the comics. It didn't work, did it?"  
"You could say that. Banner was exposed to massive amounts of gamma radiation. If he loses his temper, he changes into a creature capable of destruction on the scale of, say, a dozen pissed off ogres. On steroids.

Harry whistled. "Good to know. Speaking of magical matters, you never told me how you met Rashid. Is there a meet and greet for enigmatic one-eyed people? Maybe a singles club?"

He was interrupted by one of the agents calling out, "Director! We found him, he's in Stuttgart."

Coulson was over by the screen at once. "Looks like he's not even trying to hide," he commented.

"No story-time tonight, Dresden, you're going to Germany."

* * *

Five minutes later, Harry, Molly, and Steve were geared up and on their way to Stuttgart, with Agent Romanoff piloting. Molly had been escorted to the hangar escorted by said Scary-Agent-Lady, looking like she'd gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar. But she'd taken one look at Steve's Captain America suit and started snickering.

"Yeah, I know," said Steve, "I didn't come up with the design."

Harry had smacked Molly on the back of the head. Again. "Let them without ridiculous fashion sense cast the first stone."

"You're one to talk, Mr. El Dorado."

"What's wrong with this duster?!"

They were well under way when Steve looked curiously at Harry's gun. "Is that a Winchester?"

"Yep, don't ask me what model it is, though, 'cause I have no clue. My brother only gave it to me because he didn't trust me with his machine guns."

"What's it loaded with?"

Harry took out the empty magazine and used his magic to load it with his ammo of choice. He handed it to Steve, "Take a look."

Steve's eyes widened as he took the magazine and removed one of the rounds. "Ice bullets?"

Molly groaned, "You are such a nerd, Harry."

Steve rolled the bullet around in his hand, examining it. It refused to melt, and appeared to be one solid piece of ice. "How does this even fire? There can't be any gunpowder in it."

Harry grinned. Thomas had reacted similarly. "Technically, the gun isn't firing anything. It's like pulling the trigger on an empty chamber. It's just a focus, like my staff, but more specialized. It's not as flashy as my usual stuff, but it takes less juice." And more importantly, it meant he didn't have to draw on the mantle as much. It took focus and concentration rather than raw power, and that's what Mab had trained him with. "I have regular bullets just in case, but then I actually have to aim."

"Translation," said Molly, "If he's firing regular bullets, the safest place to stand is right in front of him."

"I'm not even going to respond to that," said Harry.

"We're coming up on Stuttgart," said Romanoff. "There's a big art gallery showing near where Loki was spotted, so that's probably where he'll be."

"Then you should probably step on the gas, because I'm pretty sure he's already there. We're heading in the direction of a very large group of very panicked people."

"Copy that. Captain, we're going to drop you in on your own. Dresden and Carpernter will stay here at range and cover you. Carpenter, does your invisibility trick work on more than just people?"

"You mean will it work on the jet? Maybe, but I won't be able to hold it for very long. Too many people are panicking and it's giving me a migraine."

"Do it now."

As it turned out, their arrival timing was almost perfect. Steve jumped out of the low-flying veiled quinjet just in time to repel an attack meant for an old man.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."

"He has potential," said Harry, who had his gum pointed at Loki, "but he still has much to learn of the ways of the snappy one-liner."

Molly released the veil with an unladylike grunt. "Please tell me you're not going to try to make Captain America your apprentice in snarking."

"You think I could get away with calling him Padawan?"

Over the quinjet loudspeakers, Agent Romanoff said, "Loki, drop the weapon and stand down." Off the speakers, she said, "Coulson would kill you for trying to corrupt his childhood hero. The junior agents wouldn't gamble on whether he would succeed, they would gamble on whether he uses his tie or his teacup."

Below them, Steve and Loki had started fighting. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Steve was getting his ass kicked. Harry had to admire the man's tenaciousness, but he was likely going to get himself killed on his own. Harry aimed the Winchester in Loki's general direction, which was all the precision he needed, and pulled the trigger three times, channeling his magic and fixing Loki in his mind as a target. There was no loud gunshot sound, no recoil, and no superheated shell casing flying at Harry's face. Steve was correct, the gun's mechanisms had no effect on the bullet. Technically, Harry could achieve the same result by throwing the chunks, but it would take more energy, not to mention it would look ridiculous.

Loki kicked Steve away before catching all three bullets out of the air, looking straight at Harry with a grin. Harry grinned right back when Loki tossed the rounds aside. "That wasn't smart, Rudolph." The bullets didn't even hit the ground, instead turning around in midair and smacking Antlers in the back of the head, making him stumble.

That was when the loudspeakers decided to blast AC/DC, and a cocky voice emanated from the console, "Agent Romanoff, did you miss me?" A red and gold streak resolved itself into a human shape, hit the ground, knocked Loki on his ass, and proceeded to point a _lot _of weapons at him. "You might want to stand down, Rudolph."

"Oh, God," Molly put her head in her hands. "We have another you, Harry."


End file.
